If you forgot who Matej Delac is, let us remind you: the Croatian keeper was signed by Chelsea in 2010 but never played for the Blues and spent most of his eight-year spell on the club's books as one of many loanees.
And as Delac remembered back in 2018 when his time at Chelsea finally ended, Petr Cech played an important role in at least one of those loan deals.
"Petr really helped me a lot, especially the first two years when I arrived," Delac, now 28, told Goal. "Everything was new to me and it was not easy to adapt to English football when you come from a lesser league like in Croatia. So he helped me with advice and everything.
"He even found me a loan club in Czech Republic. It was he who found me the club. He helped me a lot. I am still in contact with him. He is a very important guy in my career.
"He helped bring me into Chelsea so he was also one of the other most important people in my career."
Apparently, the club Delac spoke about is Dynamo Ceske Budejovice, the Czech club Matej played for in the 2011/12 season. Not that he had a lot of happy memories there, though: he returned to Chelsea after playing just one game, a 4–0 defeat against Viktoria Plzen.
Still, it's notable that even then, Cech had a capacity for sealing deals, a knack that is very useful for his current role as the Chelsea director's technical and performance advisor.
